WASHINGTON — As the nation’s spy agencies assess the fallout from
disclosures about their surveillance programs, some government analysts
and senior officials have made a startling finding: the impact of a
leaked terrorist plot by Al Qaeda
in August has caused more immediate damage to American counterterrorism
efforts than the thousands of classified documents disclosed by Edward
Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor.

Since news reports in early August revealed that the United States
intercepted messages between Ayman al-Zawahri, who succeeded Osama bin
Laden as the head of Al Qaeda, and Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the head of the
Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, discussing an imminent
terrorist attack, analysts have detected a sharp drop in the terrorists’
use of a major communications channel that the authorities were
monitoring. Since August, senior American officials have been scrambling
to find new ways to surveil the electronic messages and conversations
of Al Qaeda’s leaders and operatives.

“The switches weren’t turned off, but there has been a real decrease in
quality” of communications, said one United States official, who like
others quoted spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss
intelligence programs.

As to who might be trying to accomplish what with this latest story, who can tell? Is this meant to be false reassurance to Al Qaeda, a valentine to Snowden and his press enablers, or something else entirely (like, a news story...)? I would say that based purely on the timing the August 2013 details were *not* Administration self-promotion like the Obama 2012 re-election leaks.

FOR WANT OF A WORD, or ORIGINAL INTENT: I amended the previous paragraph to reverse its meaning by adding the word "not". Ooops.